As can be readily appreciated, printing plants frequently accept delivery of large shipments of paper rolls from paper mills. Before using the paper rolls, the shipments require processing for bookkeeping purposes which can be costly both in terms of time and labor.
First, it is typically the case that each newly arrived paper roll is assigned an identifying number for identification purposes. Generally speaking, most paper rolls already have bar-coded identification labels which are used by the paper mills and, when these identification indicia are used by the printing plant f or bookkeeping purposes, the coded labels have to be scanned and read by appropriate hardware. Some rolls do not have identification indicia labels which necessitates affixing a label with an identification number onto the roll.
Next, the paper rolls need to be weighed and the weight recorded in conjunction with the roll number. Thereafter, the weights of the paper rolls are compared f or accuracy against the invoice from the paper mill. The roll weights are also used for receiving reports, accounts payable reports and general inventory control.
As will be appreciated, the rolls of paper have to be moved around between locations in order to read the mill labels, affix new labels, and/or weigh the rolls. The rolls are typically bulky, tall and difficult to transport. Therefore, a truck or other vehicle is required to transport the rolls between locations which makes processing them even more time and labor intensive.
In general, no matter the way in which shipments of paper rolls are received and processed by printing plants, a costly amount of time and labor is required. Therefore, there is a need for an automated receiving station. Such a station would be useful in other contexts for processing receivable goods for general industrial plants or any other use which may suggest itself to those skilled in the art.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems discussed above.